


Commander's Authority

by Mertiya



Series: Story Circle [15]
Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Jace is exhausted, Jace needs a break, M/M, Only very slightly shippy, Responsibility, Setting a good example
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 08:30:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8365207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: Someone Gideon doesn't know isn't happy with the example he's setting for Jace.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to paperclipminimizer for the title and some of the lines, as well as all my supportive friends over on Discord.

“You’ve got to stop.”

“What?”  Gideon looked up in confusion from cleaning his sword.  “Er…have we met?”

The man standing in front of him seemed vaguely familiar, but Gideon couldn’t quite place him, although he was obviously a member of the Izzet–the massive, sparking device on his arm would have given that way even if the swirling red-and-blue silks didn’t.

A pair of sharp eyebrows rose, and the man jerked his thumb toward the direction of Jace’s study.  “You’re going to get him fucking killed.”

“I what?” Gideon stood up, carefully belting his sword at his side.  “If you think I’d do _anything_  to threaten Jace–”

“I think he looks up to you a lot,” the stranger said bluntly.  “I think he’d walk through fire for you if you asked him to.  And I think you need to stop making him do everything himself.”

“I–what?  I’m not making him–who are you anyway?”

Frustrated, irritable sigh.  A spark jumped from the metal gauntlet at the other man’s elbow and hit the wall with a sizzling noise, and he dropped a hand down to fiddle with a dial so rapidly that the response seemed automatic.  “Ral Zarek, Izzet guildmage first, planeswalker second.  So I think you can see why I might have something at stake when it comes to not letting the living incarnation of Ravnican law and order die because he’s worked himself to death trying to save some backwater plane by himself.”

Gideon was starting to think he didn’t like this man.  He frowned.  “I would never ask Jace to take a risk I wouldn’t take myself,” he responded slowly, but the response he got was a bark of laughter and a larger clot of sparks.

“Because I’m sure you’re exceedingly careful with your own life?”

That set Gideon back slightly.  “I’m careful of the people under my command,” he responded slowly.  It was true he could probably stand to be a little more careful with himself, but he was less likely to be damaged than most of the comrades he fought with.

“Look, just follow me, okay?”  Zarek nodded toward Jace’s study again.

Reluctantly, Gideon followed him down the passageway and into the Guildpact’s inner sanctum.  Lavinia was standing by the door; she shot the two of them a harsh look as they approached.  “Be quiet,” she murmured, “he’s sleeping.”

Again, Gideon frowned.  It was late afternoon; why was Jace sleeping?

“I won’t wake him up,” Zarek growled, shoving past her, and to Gideon’s surprise, she let him, though her lips thinned slightly.  They thinned further when he went to duck into the room after Zarek, but she nodded at him politely, if coolly.

Jace was sprawled facedown on his desk, his face pillowed in the crook of his arm, three mounds of paperwork hemming in on all sides.  Zarek crossed the room to him, hovering in a way that almost looked anxious, then glared daggers at Gideon before very, very softly tucking Jace’s cloak a little more securely about his shoulders.

“He’s fucking _exhausted_ ,” Zarek snarled.  “He’s got scars everywhere, and now he’s bringing home new ones.  Because none of you fucking morons have ever considered _delegating_.”

“What?” Gideon asked stupidly.  Jace shifted uncomfortably in his sleep, and now Gideon could see his friend’s face–and he had to admit, Jace did look pale and drawn, with dark shadows marked beneath his eyes and a fading bruise beneath one cheekbone where he’d been struck during a minor tussle on Tarkir.

“There’s this amazing thing,” Zarek continued.  “Where in a lab, for example, you have _assistants_ , and if something is going to be difficult and dangerous, you send  _them_  to do it–”

“I won’t send other people into danger,” Gideon broke in angrily.

“– _because,_ ” the Izzet mage continued in a low, deadly voice, “if _you_  get killed, the whole experiment is a failure and your entire team gets eaten by a dragon _anyway_.  Probably.”

Gideon looked away.  There was–a certain logic in what the Izzet mage was saying, but– “I don’t force Jace to do anything,” he pointed out.  “What he does, he does of his own free will.”

Zarek snorted with laughter.  “No, he does it because he’s fucking terrible at prioritizing and thinks that if something is important he has to go do it himself or it won’t get done properly, and if you’re his friends, you’ll teach him _not to do that_.  Don’t just keep heaping on the dire warnings and shit.”

“As planeswalkers, we have a duty to the Multiverse–” Gideon started, though at this point, he recognized with a little chagrin that he was mostly objecting out of defensiveness.

“And as the Living Guildpact, _he_  has a duty to Ravnica.  Frankly, if it were up to me, I’d say _fuck the Multiverse_ , but I know Jace won’t do that, because he–cares too fucking much.  And you’re a bad influence, so fucking stop it.”

It wasn’t easy to be dressed-down like a child, but Gideon bit back the sharp words that rose to his lips in answer–and was suddenly glad he’d done so, when Jace made a soft noise in his sleep, and he saw the concerned, almost tender look the Izzet mage shot towards the sleeping Guildpact.

“All right,” Gideon said in a clipped voice.  “I’ll–try.  I’m still going to send for him if we need his expertise, but I’ll–try to let him know it’s important for him to be here as well.”

“ _Thank_  you.”  Electricity crawled across Zarek’s hair and down his back.  “Then I guess I’ll let myself out.”  He started towards the door, then paused, sending another sharp look back over his shoulder.  “And even though you are supposedly indestructible, I still remember hearing about you _collapsing_ on the steps to the Chamber of the Guildpact.  Learn.  To.  Delegate.”

Before Gideon could muster even another breath, he was gone, stalking out of the room in a shower of sudden sparks.  The door shut softly behind him, but even so, Jace started up sleepily.

“Gideon?  Something wrong?  You need me?”  His voice was slurred with sleep and exhaustion, and Gideon looked over, a sudden guilt welling up in his throat.

“No–Jace, go back to sleep.  I was just–looking for a book.”

Bleary blue eyes regarded him for a moment, and then Jace yawned and put his head down on the desk again, with a murmured, “oh, sure, ’kay.”

Tiptoeing back toward the door, Gideon shook his head.  He shouldn’t have missed this.  It was too important.  Rude as he was, the Izzet guildmage hadn’t been in the wrong.

“Er, Lavinia,” he said as he shut the door quietly behind him.  “Could you see if you could…find some people who could, um, help out with…things?”  Not a very coherent request, but she raised a friendly eyebrow.

“Yes, Captain Jura, I think I can find you some people who could help out with  _things._   And–” she shuffled her feet slightly.  “–Guildmage Zarek is often rather difficult, but I believe he does care for Jace.”

“Yes,” Gideon nodded slowly.  “Thank you, Lavinia.”

_And thank you, Guildmage Zarek._

He started back in the direction of his quarters.  He had a lot to think about.


End file.
